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In the old testament, gospel accounts, Hebrews 11 and Acts we see 'faith in action', to ignore those examples leaves us with a philosophical playing of words in trying to determine what faith is. Faith is a verb, always moving, believing in, resting, doing, trusting, obeying, looking to ...Jesus Christ in God
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The truth is, the carnal (intellectual, logical) mind cannot receive anything from God. Because God relates to us spiritually. You will never convince a man logically that he needs God, because the flesh will always be offended and recoil from Him. The only sure way of witnessing to others is KEEPING YOUR EYES ON JESUS and drawing near to Him every day. He will testify of Himself through you. It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE as well to your statement in parenthesis. It's not a formula you have to figure out. God is our Father and the only thing He wants us to do is maintain our relationship with Him. He does all the rest. When God compels you to do a thing, there won't be any questions about it, because He will also put His desire in you to do a thing.
Faith is believing God loves you and wants to know you so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die on the Cross for you. Draw closer to Him. By the spirit of Jesus Christ He will do all the rest through you.
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The only way I could come to belief was through personal experience. God revealed Himself to me a number of times before I became willing to respond appropriately by laying down my opposition to Him. I just gave this response in another thread:
Pray that you may know God personally, intimately, unmistakably. It is promised in Scripture that those who seek diligently shall find, and that if you pray according to the will of God, your prayers will be answered, that God reveals Himself to those He loves, those He loves being those who do as He commands, to love Him and your neighbor as yourself. Then when you experience Him, you can say you know Him; it is not just head knowledge, or something you read in a book, but something you know in your heart of hearts, something that is True and that you will defend with your life because the purity of the love contained in that knowledge surpasses anything you have ever known or will ever know.
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People who do not believe in God will not believe that you can or have experienced God. It is anathema to their mindset, which is completely in keeping with what Scripture teaches. So I am not sure really what you are looking for. Asking non-believers to seek God for themselves is scoffed at as well since they are not about to go in search of something they have already made up their mind does not exist. You must trust God in this and simply encourage them to continue seeking truth, to not accept the easy answers if they are serious in their search, and to develop spiritual principles such as honesty, open mindedness, and willingness.
Pray that you may know God personally, intimately, unmistakably. It is promised in Scripture that those who seek diligently shall find, and that if you pray according to the will of God, your prayers will be answered, that God reveals Himself to those He loves, those He loves being those who do as He commands, to love Him and your neighbor as yourself. Then when you experience Him, you can say you know Him; it is not just head knowledge, or something you read in a book, but something you know in your heart of hearts, something that is True and that you will defend with your life because the purity of the love contained in that knowledge surpasses anything you have ever known or will ever know.
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People who do not believe in God will not believe that you can or have experienced God. It is anathema to their mindset, which is completely in keeping with what Scripture teaches. So I am not sure really what you are looking for. Asking non-believers to seek God for themselves is scoffed at as well since they are not about to go in search of something they have already made up their mind does not exist. You must trust God in this and simply encourage them to continue seeking truth, to not accept the easy answers if they are serious in their search, and to develop spiritual principles such as honesty, open mindedness, and willingness.
if you're trying to use logic, and reason, then you already (by faith) are believing that there is purpose, cause and effect, and order in the universe, so to go on from that and take the stand that all things are chance, random & chaos is "illogical" in the sense that it's at conflict with the very idea that you can think or hold a "belief" at all.
if you accept that having "ideas" and "concepts" beyond fire hot and food good signify some sort of intellectual capacity that's more than what is necessary for crude survival, that man is more in any sense than a beast, then what's left is to trade arrogance due to this assumption for humility, and ask finally "why" - because there is no evolutionary advantage to burning all this energy up, exercising one's brain with such thoughts and questions - you admit there is, then, something "more"
if the arrogance can be set aside, there is God, and there is man. the preponderance of evidence of religion all over the world in every culture and every people ought to be enough - else men reject it, holding on again to arrogance in themselves, thinking the whole of humanity is stupid and deceived. again, one needs humility.
once you accept that there is God, and there is man -- then there is only one understanding of this with a living God, actively reaching out towards man. Jesus Christ. in every other religion and belief, it's incumbent on mankind to reach up towards God, to make himself worthy to be noticed by the divine. only in Jesus Christ is revealed the love and grace of God, setting aside His glory & stooping down to be born in stupid, ignoble flesh, in order to reconcile us to God and make Himself known to us.
this takes humility too. you cannot come to God with pride, intellectual or otherwise.
this also transcends and turns logic and reason upside-down -- and i don't believe you can see it without being called by God, and having the Spirit of God Himself putting faith in you, to answer. is that a death-stroke to freewill? a whole other discussion. but tangentially, i do not see free-will as humility, and i still maintain that pride will block anyone's line-of-sight to God, until it is shattered and humbled.
i wouldn't expect to convince anyone of Christ "by reason" alone. we answer, because He first calls.
if you accept that having "ideas" and "concepts" beyond fire hot and food good signify some sort of intellectual capacity that's more than what is necessary for crude survival, that man is more in any sense than a beast, then what's left is to trade arrogance due to this assumption for humility, and ask finally "why" - because there is no evolutionary advantage to burning all this energy up, exercising one's brain with such thoughts and questions - you admit there is, then, something "more"
if the arrogance can be set aside, there is God, and there is man. the preponderance of evidence of religion all over the world in every culture and every people ought to be enough - else men reject it, holding on again to arrogance in themselves, thinking the whole of humanity is stupid and deceived. again, one needs humility.
once you accept that there is God, and there is man -- then there is only one understanding of this with a living God, actively reaching out towards man. Jesus Christ. in every other religion and belief, it's incumbent on mankind to reach up towards God, to make himself worthy to be noticed by the divine. only in Jesus Christ is revealed the love and grace of God, setting aside His glory & stooping down to be born in stupid, ignoble flesh, in order to reconcile us to God and make Himself known to us.
this takes humility too. you cannot come to God with pride, intellectual or otherwise.
this also transcends and turns logic and reason upside-down -- and i don't believe you can see it without being called by God, and having the Spirit of God Himself putting faith in you, to answer. is that a death-stroke to freewill? a whole other discussion. but tangentially, i do not see free-will as humility, and i still maintain that pride will block anyone's line-of-sight to God, until it is shattered and humbled.
i wouldn't expect to convince anyone of Christ "by reason" alone. we answer, because He first calls.
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Yeah I have a few questions also but even though I ask for the answers to be explained plainly without the quoted scripture,what can you do?
Amyways for me technically im a Christian but I live a Christian life only because it happens to coincide with common sense.
There are (in my opinion) major points of the bible that need to be observed in any functioning society not just a Christian society And there is practical reasoning for them for instance, incest is a sin because that leads to inbreeding which comprises the entire human gene pool.
God said for ALL christians to come together not just a certain race which sounds like he's against racism and if you want to see what racism does to a society trying to function? Turn on the news ...seriously.
And God told us to obey the laws of the government not to make our own laws because if we did that could lead to a society where things like incest and racism are allowed by the law enforcement that are supposed to stop such things.
sex outside the institution of marriage is a sin the reasoning being that it spreads diseases that are detrimental to the progress of our species.
Also it cause conflict which leads to worse problems effect society as a whole .
Divorce and domestic violence are at a all time high and do you want to see why divorce is bad? Look at all the packed prisons they done studies showing that most 'common' criminals were raised in single parent homes.
They develop properly because both parents are needed for that along with a proper environment.
These are just a few examples, its sad how there are a lot of people that would like to spread the values of Christ but they just have no communication skills so they regurgitate quoted scripture that was shoved down their throat by someone just like them.
When you are trying to explain the benefits of using common sense with s never ending loop of regurgitated scripture its no wonder sooo many people just don't see the obvious benefits of a functioning society and sadly may not make it to heaven as a consequence.
Amyways for me technically im a Christian but I live a Christian life only because it happens to coincide with common sense.
There are (in my opinion) major points of the bible that need to be observed in any functioning society not just a Christian society And there is practical reasoning for them for instance, incest is a sin because that leads to inbreeding which comprises the entire human gene pool.
God said for ALL christians to come together not just a certain race which sounds like he's against racism and if you want to see what racism does to a society trying to function? Turn on the news ...seriously.
And God told us to obey the laws of the government not to make our own laws because if we did that could lead to a society where things like incest and racism are allowed by the law enforcement that are supposed to stop such things.
sex outside the institution of marriage is a sin the reasoning being that it spreads diseases that are detrimental to the progress of our species.
Also it cause conflict which leads to worse problems effect society as a whole .
Divorce and domestic violence are at a all time high and do you want to see why divorce is bad? Look at all the packed prisons they done studies showing that most 'common' criminals were raised in single parent homes.
They develop properly because both parents are needed for that along with a proper environment.
These are just a few examples, its sad how there are a lot of people that would like to spread the values of Christ but they just have no communication skills so they regurgitate quoted scripture that was shoved down their throat by someone just like them.
When you are trying to explain the benefits of using common sense with s never ending loop of regurgitated scripture its no wonder sooo many people just don't see the obvious benefits of a functioning society and sadly may not make it to heaven as a consequence.
P
I agree with you there you are not alone, let me say first that I have been a christian for a long time and I could quote scripture to you but I see that you have not excepted God as he is. So I would ask you first, how do you see God as God in other words you bring logic into the picture, so you are looking for a logical God?
